gogul: Is there an intellectual property lawyer in the house? I wonder whether BrainKing would have to make royalty payments to Mattel Inc., Hasbro, or whomever currently owns the Scrabble trademark.

Sarah1980: It´s requested, I second that. I´ve never tried, but scrabble is played over the net at some places.

let's talk about that WORD game shall we?????

mctrivia: I love to play against opponents with an IQ of 1000

alanback: But that is even more of a reason to why games against unrated players should not effect the rated players rating. They may not notice when signing up for a tournament that some newbie to Brainking with an IQ of 1000 signed up for the rournament.

Summertop: If the unrated player can enter a tournament, then he will have the opportunity to play against rated players. Some tournaments do allow unrated players to enter, and rated opponents cannot refuse to play.

grenv:  Yeah, that would be too complicated.  Basically, I think we need a solution that allows raved vs unrated players to have fair ratings.  Right now there are only two solutions:

1. Rated plays against unrated players, but takes a risk if the unrated player is a good player.  Unfair for the rated player.
2. Rated player refuses to play against unrated players.  Unfair for the unrated player.
   

Summertop: A better solution may be to wait until the player gets a rating, then apply that rating to the game you played against them. Unfortunately that requires some more complex programming though.

when unrated players play rated players, The unrated players will get a more accurate rating. Unfortunately, the rated player may take a hit for playing. I just think the rating formula should be updated so rated player's don't get adjusted if the opponent isn't rated.

jurek: It was pretty obviously sarcasm. After all if we only let unrated players play each other they would become rated, but the ratings would be meaningless.

jurek: I understood the sarcasm, and didn't mean to take issue with that insightful message. My mistake was to reply only to Pythagoras, although there were a number of distinct and thoughtful postings on that subject.

wetware: Unfortunately, Pythagoras's sarcasm probably came off a little too straight-laced. That's one of the main problems with typed sarcasm--there's a very fine line separating it and something that sounds real. Although, I think his final suggestion of non-rated players not being able to play on Mondays kinda put it over the top.

Pythagoras: It wasn't so long ago that I was unrated at all variants here--it's so recent that I still remember it :) It would have been a shame if all rated players would have refused to play me for that reason (as it would have been their right to do). I'm thankful to all of those who took the risk and to those who shed some rating points. On my part, I've never blocked unrated opponents from my game invitations. I remember where I came from!

CRY ME A RIVER: .
.
.
pauloaguia: IT IS OUR RIGHT TO DO SO

Yes of course! I'm with you! I heavily compain to Fencer that allows unrated players to play games versus rated players!!!!!!!
Fencer you should put an end to this! Don't ever allow unrated players to play with rated ones. Even if both sides want this..... Consider this as a feature request by me. It's my right to ask this....
Also another very useful thing would be if unrated players would not be able to play at Mondays! It's my right to ask this and as a paying member i do....


Also a tip to CRY ME A RIVER and Summertop:
If you don't want to play with an unrated player you have the option to do it and don't play.....
If you want to play with an unrated player you have the option to do it and play.....

Sarah1980: Me too, but lets not think negative, we could learn it by doing

gogul: well because i don't know latin,

pauloaguia: A little negative? aren't you?

The point is...If they have a rating, you know their skill level and you can make the decision to play them. You might play a better player to gain skills. You might play a weaker player to gain rating points.

When you play an unrated player, you don't know what type of player they are. But you will have your rating adjusted based on a "Weak" player. So, in this case the unrated player is a VERY good player, yet the rating system "thinks" they are a weak player. So, my ratings took a hard hit.

Because of this, many strong rated players won't play rated games against unrated players. Why would they take the risk?

In answer to your question, pauloaguia, Since they ARE rated I know before starting the game, what I am getting into.

pauloaguia: IT IS OUR RIGHT TO DO SO

Summertop: If the player was rated 500 for instance, would you play against him/her?

• If not, then you can choose not to play against unrated players as well.
  
• If yes, then you'd probably have lost a whole lot more than 56 points. So why do you complain here? ;)

CRY ME A RIVER: Well, actually, it was two games. I am going to lose over a hundred points off my rating.

Summertop: The ratings in all games are very hard to understand.You try to get a game up,then bang 1 game and its over,very frustrating you don't no who to play and who not to.

When playing a game against an unrated player, could the ratings be changed so only the unrated player's is modified?

I accepted a challenge from an unrated player (his first game on BK). He turned out to be quite good and I lost. I figured my rating might go down, but I didn't expect it to go down 56 points. It makes me want to NOT play against unrated players...

Sarah1980: how about a latin scrabble?? ;)
Any language, for german the scrabble refers to the DUDEN1, Die Rechtschreibung.

nabla: ENGLISH WOULD BE NICE

gogul: YES

Sarah1980: In what language ?

Sarah1980: Scrabble? :)

WE WANT A WORD GAME PLEASEEEEE

BIG BAD WOLF: OK thanks:)

CRY ME A RIVER: Are you talking about the language flags on the main brainking page, or are you talking something about the fast players club?

On the main page, those flags are just for languages - which english or french flags should cover Canada I think.

When are we going to see a CANADIAN FLAG on our main page? :)

Since some html is allowed in our profiles, 
would it be possible to use tables in there also?

Would be a nice feature

<pre>   I´m not using RTE yet, for this post I do and now the paste and copy do. But I´m not sure if the font styles works in the games.

mctrivia: BrainKing is written in Java (server side) but the RTE editor or the smiley popup window is in JavaScript (client side).

Fencer: Sorry my programing expertice is C and Assembly.

mctrivia: JavaScript, not Java. It's a big difference.

SafariGal: Hard for me to say I have been programing for most of my life(18 years). You would need to learn Java. We(mostly hex kid) have been developing a script for users of Brainking to do a lot of things in user scripting but only paying members can get into fellowships. Not sure if hexkid wants to make this script available for all.

This may help. Dive into Grease Monkey

mctrivia: is it easy to write a script? I am not a programmer

SafariGal: At present the only way to remove smileys and pictures is to use grease monkey and write a script to do it. As a paying member you have the option to turn off smileys.

I do think there should be a minimal bandwidth option available to all players. This would allow people to turn off all pictures and save bandwidth for both BrainKing and for those people that turn this feature on.

I would like this because when I am on a wrieless connection I don't always get a very fast connection to this site.

BIG BAD WOLF: No, I don't think you can shut off the players pictures no matter who ya are.

Gogul It was either here or brainking.com db, I think.

BIG BAD WOLF: thanks. I find the pictures can make it hard to follow a thread by taking up room. So many times now I look on a board, General Chat for example, and I try and read the newst 20 messages and it looks like a lot but it ends up being filled with single messages such as "lol" only etc and as it turns out, all 20 messages are often pointless.

SafariGal: This was a subject recently, I don´t know where now, but it was on public boards.

SafariGal: As a knight or rook, you have the ability to turn off smileys. I'm not sure if you can turn off the players pictures or not.

rod03801: why would you laugh at that suggestion? It was a real question and not intended to be a setup for mockery. You are also a moderator so maybe you should moderate your own comment

SafariGal: Sure! Become a knight or rook!

is there any way for us to turn off the player pictures and smileys?

redfrog: No, there isn't a way.

That would also be a helpful feature for moderators.

if there is a way - can someone tell me.... if there isnt - could there be?

When a message is edited on a discussion board, could an option be selected or checked by the big boss or moderator that would show it on your board list as a new message?

SafariGal: It means you have beat 3 other people , i like the small tournies now and again , usually they are quick to play to the end

CRY ME A RIVER: better yet, maybe there should be a limit. Tournaments with less than 10 or 20 players dont count for tourney wins. Lets face it, having a tourney win in a 4 person tournament is kind of silly. Maybe some egomaniacs like it but it is pointless and the wins mean nothing